


“we’re the family you choose, the family that mattered”

by sunset_oasis



Series: Innocent Before Yesterday [21]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Light Angst, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 18:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12174177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunset_oasis/pseuds/sunset_oasis
Summary: Marauders through the years.





	“we’re the family you choose, the family that mattered”

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

 

Sirius Black never cared for his family much. His relationship with his parents was tensed at best, and you didn't want to know what the worst could be. He didn't hate his brother Regulus, but he didn't like him, either. He sneered, at Regulus's listening to his parents, accepting their ideas.

Sirius never cared for his family much.

Until he found himself a new one.

 

* * *

 

The howlers from his parents made him guffawed loudly, excited to win this one over them, to shock them with his sorting. He wore his Gryffindor colors proudly, and he didn't care about what his parents said. He was free, in Hogwarts, and he didn't need them. He didn't want them.

He never did.

Except maybe at late nights, when he was most vulnerable, and he thought about how maybe he was never meant to be loved, maybe he was never meant to have a loving family, maybe, maybe -

"We'll be your family," James Potter declared, and Sirius realized that he'd said it out loud. Beside him, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew nodded earnestly.

They were eleven.

 

* * *

 

James was like a star, a warm, bright one, in Sirius's opinion. (Now, Sirius Black might've claimed that he hated being a Black, but that didn't mean he didn't have all those astrology knowledge jammed into him, or the tendency to compare real life to the night skies like the stories he'd grown up with.)

See, Sirius was bright, too, but he thought that it was like a kind of overly sharp bright, the kind that was burning hot, like someday it was going to burn out as a disaster but he didn't care. No, because it sounded cool, and at eleven, he'd already thought about living his life shortly but colorfully with lots of crazy and intense stuff, like a bright start that was burning out too fast, burning from the start to the end. (He would never imagine, that James was the one who would die first, young at twenty-one. Twenty-one sounded old at eleven, sounded like an eternity away.) (He would have a different opinion when he was over thirty.)

Peter was always shyer, and behind Remus's gentle smiles, Sirius could feel some sort of darker secret behind it, a past that was probably different from Sirius and his family he didn't care about, but had it's own darkness. James, though, he came from a loving family and his eyes never had the darker shades of past as far as Sirius could see. And he wasn't shy or hesitant, like ever. No, he was bright and warm, almost like a sun that Sirius couldn't help gravitate towards.

Despite all their differences, they had all sorts of adventures together, all sorts of fun. The warmth of friendship was the first kind of warmth Sirius felt.

They were twelve.

 

* * *

 

Remus Lupin didn't had that kind of toxic relationship like the one Sirius had with the Blacks, but that didn't mean his childhood and home life was any easier. His parents loved him and he loved them, but the incident that turned him into a werewolf was a thing that scarred them all. (Not all scars were physical.)

He didn't blame his father - at least, he didn't think he did - but his father definitely blamed himself about Greyback. Remus loved his family, he truly did, but they were all haunted by their past together.

The family he had Hogwarts - not by blood, but by friendship, by loyalty - was a much more merrier one. They had mostly happy and untainted memories together, with bright laughter and warm smiles and colorful times.

A part of him was always worried that one day it wouldn't be untainted, that one day it would be broken too, if his friends were to ever learn about his ... condition.

Turned out though, that he was wrong.

"We've decided, to become animagus for you." They declared, like it was the easiest thing in the world, but he knew that it was far from it.

_"_ _We're family, remember?"_

They were fourteen.

 

* * *

 

Peter Pettigrew never really felt that he belonged anywhere before he came to Hogwarts. He was never in any friend circles when he was in the muggle schools his muggleborn mother sent him to. He always knew he was different, that he had magic, that he could never quite fit in.

He wondered if it was because of the magic, or he just wasn't the type to have friends.

But it was at Hogwarts, that he first found a group of friends. A group of people who accepted him into them, who saw them as their own. They were friends - family, even.

He didn't have particularly high grades in school stuff, but he did have some smarts outside of books. They were the first to ever see it, and he was grateful of that.

Now, a small frown was on his face as he concentrated hard on the piece of parchment in front him, and he wondered if he got the charm right, and after a while, the lines began appearing by itself on the previously blank parchment, forming the Hogwarts castle.

"Woah, that's so cool, Wormtail!" James exclaimed, and Peter felt a rush of excitement, of pride.

They were fifteen.

 

* * *

 

Sirius ran away from his family after deciding he'd finally had enough. He landed on James's doorstep, a half-angry, half-excited grin on his face. The taste of freedom, or wilderness, of never going back -

The Potters welcomed them into their home with worried eyes, with concerned questions about his scars, with smothering love that made him wondered if that was actually what real families should be.

"You don't need them," James said, earnest and indignant. "You have the Marauders.  _We're the family you choose, the family that mattered_."

They were sixteen.

 

* * *

 

A part of Remus, even after his friends assured him they didn't care that he was a werewolf, was still worried that one day something about his condition would change things, would accidentally ruin things.

They day came sooner than he thought, as he nearly took a life. It wasn't a life of someone that was his friend, it wasn't a life of someone he liked, but it was a life and he almost had that on his conscience. Because Sirius had thought it would be funny, would be - well, Remus didn't know what, exactly.

Like he'd always been afraid, his werewolf condition had found a way to haunt not only his family by blood, but his new family too. Because while he told them that everything was alright, that it was fine, after James's intervening and Sirius's apology and everything, he felt like something was changed forever now.

They were still sixteen, and he wondered if they were still innocent.

 

* * *

 

They were his family, and Peter once though that they'd be close forever. But he knew that Remus had changed after the night that he nearly killed Snape, and while they all pretended that things were fine, it wasn't exactly fine. Far from fine, judging by some late night arguments of Sirius and Remus that neither of them thought anyone else had heard.

Slowly and subtly they drifted apart. Sirius getting pressure from the family he ran away from, his parents urging him to redeem himself by showing his loyalty to the Black family, to blood purity. Regulus sending accusatory glares and sneers at the hallways when they met, whether out of anger of being abandoned, or out of disgust that he embraced what the Black family was against, was never exactly known. Remus still got nightmares from the night he almost killed, and while he didn't talked to anyone about it anymore, Peter could see still it in Remus's eyes. Peter didn't bring it up because he knew Remus didn't want to talk about it, so he only tried to distract him with lighter stuff, which mostly seemed not to work.

James seemed to have some sudden progresses with Lily Evans, and Peter felt that he was seeing him less and less. He wondered, if James saw Sirius's pressure and Remus's nightmares as he did. He thought, that James had always been the most optimistic, the one with the happiest childhood of them all, and Peter wondered if he ever saw the darker shades underneath everyone.

Peter wondered, if the taste in his mouth right now was resentment.

They were seventeen.

 

* * *

 

James Potter might have many flaws, but one thing he never was, was being distrustful of his friends. He had the highest faith in them, and he trusted all of them. The prophecy definitely made him and Lily worried, but he'd taken precautions, and he'd rather believe in his friends, than believe in Trelawney's inner eye.

Remus was running underground with the werewolf, and James was worried about Remus's safety, but also proud that he was taking on this kind of spy work and doing well. Sirius was his secret keeper, and James trusted Sirius with all his life. Peter was also helping out with the Order, and James had high faith in him completing missions as well.

He didn't think the change of secret keeper was needed when Sirius mentioned it, but was eventually convinced that some misdirection would be good. Besides, he trusted Peter too, and so it didn't matter that much. He did, however, argued fiercely when Sirius's words implied his suspicion for Remus. James knew that Remus would never betray him - they were all more than friends, they were _family_.

"We need to  _trust_  each other," he insisted firmly, wholeheartedly believing it.

James Potter might have many flaws, but he was never distrustful of his friends.

And maybe that was the most fatal flaw of all -

"Lily, take Harry and go!" he shouted, a part of him protective of his family, a part of him still shocked that their whereabouts got discovered.

They were twenty-one. He would  _forever_  be twenty-one.

 

* * *

 

Peter was screaming, accusing Sirius of false crimes he'd never committed. Sirius was roaring with rage, chasing after him. The betrayal hurt, everything hurt, and Sirius wondered how he was ever stupid enough to believe that the family he chose would eventually have a happier ending than the family he was born in.

The street exploded. Peter was shrinking into a rat, and the aurors were approaching Sirius, and all he felt was panic.

He was twenty-one.

He would spend the next twelve years in Azkaban, where twelve years felt like an eternity.

 

* * *

 

They had fallen apart. Two of his closest friends had died, and one had betrayed all of them. Remus left the wizarding world where the whole environment was still hostile to werewolves and he couldn't find any employment.

His family had fallen apart

He was twenty-one, but he felt twice as old. (He would never actually live to twice that old.)

 

* * *

 

This might be the end of the little family they once had Hogwarts, but Peter thought, that the end of the beginning had actually begun long ago, just maybe not everyone had seen it.

He settled himself in a wizarding family, safe but afraid, unsure whether to regret but feeling regretful all the same. Lost.

He was twenty one.

 

* * *

 

They'd been eleven when they met, and now they weren't even twice that age. They'd been friends, closer than friends - they'd been  _family_. They'd been innocent - well, maybe never  _that_  innocent, but compared to now it could certainly qualify.

Sometimes the family you chose, was more important than the family you were born with -

but that didn't mean it wouldn't fall apart.

 

* * *

 

They were twenty-one now.

Maybe they really should've stayed sixteen.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://ff-sunset-oasis.tumblr.com)


End file.
